The Tartan

Picture this: You walk into the Carnegie Mellon campus bookstore with $60 in Plaid Cash left over from your summer job food stipend. “Wonderful,” you think to yourself. “I can’t wait to get some baller CMU merch. I hope they have a cool angry Scotty shirt.” But lo, what’s this? You’re greeted with nothing but wordmark after wordmark, polo after polo, and coffee mugs galore, all with the most boring graphics you have ever encountered in your short life. You make another lap, thinking, “Surely I must have missed something — surely this can’t be it!” I have bad news for you: That’s it.

Every day I live in a state of jealous rage over the lack of cool merchandise for my school. All of it is the same! Red, black, or white with a Carnegie Mellon wordmark. Can I please have an image of Scotty? A cheeky buff man in a kilt or something? A bagpiper even? I genuinely just don’t understand the lack of diversity and fun in our Carnegie Mellon swag options. At every opportunity I attempt to remedy this by designing fun shirts for various student orgs, and I am met with immediate resistance from the trademark office. “Too fun,” they say, spitting on me. “All depictions of dogs must be black,” they grunt out, kicking me in the ribs while I’m already lying on the ground. “Please,” I cry out, “I just want a little joy in my life!” They regard me with disgust and thrust upon me a red hoodie with a white lettermark.

I think the issue is that Carnegie Mellon as an institution takes itself too seriously. If you look on their trademark policies page you’ll find all sorts of stuff about our reputation as a global institution or whatever. That’s fine, but I would like to point out that we are still a college! You are making merch for college students! The ones that paint The Fence with “We love Dick” and “Cockheed Fartin.” Do you really think that you’re making things that appeal to your students?

My jealousy is stoked every time I walk past the Pitt campus store each day on my way to Dunkin’. I’m taunted by Pitt booty shorts, Pitt t-shirts featuring a snarling panther in a thunderstorm, and hats in the shape of a panther head. Take notes, Carnegie Mellon! Give the people (me) what they want! Why should our neighbors get to ball out with their swag on, while we have to sit miserably in our embroidered pocket tees? Haven’t you put us through enough misery? Can we please have just one good thing?

As an act of good grace, I’ve designed a graphic that I believe would look lovely on a t-shirt and also sell out the instant it’s put up for sale. To whoever is in charge of making the merchandise: I encourage you to use this graphic! I won’t even ask for royalties, nor to be credited for my work — all I ask is that I be granted one measly shirt in exchange for the $10 morbillion that you’ll make off of this design. You’re welcome.